Saltwater platypus surprise!

On the windswept ocean beaches of Kangaroo Island, off the southern coast
of the Australian mainland, it was just another ordinary day.

The island is renowned as a place where you can get close to local fauna
such as seals, kangaroos and koalas. Some international tourists aimed their
video camera [actual image available only in Creation magazine] at
one of Australia’s most famous native animals as it emerged from the
sea and made its way up the sandy beach.1

Yes, the creature certainly matched the well-known descriptions of it which
had for so long intrigued sceptical biologists: fur like velvet, a beaver-like
tail, a bill that looks like a duck’s, and clawed feet useful for digging.2 The
tourists were delighted and excited to be able to see for themselves a real
live platypus in its natural habitat.

Or was it? ‘In the wild’, certainly, but was this platypus really ‘in
its natural habitat’? Accompanying the tourists on the beach at that
time was their Australian tour guide. In stark contrast to the visitors from
overseas, Campwild Adventures tour guide Ben Combridge was dumbfounded (‘spun
out’) to see this platypus come in to the shore, ‘riding in on
a small wave’, and waddle up the beach. While the tourists were excited
to experience what they thought was a standard encounter with local wildlife,
the Australian knew better. As he told a news reporter: ‘I was—like—“That’s
not meant to be here!”’1

The tour guide was ‘spun out’ to see the
platypus come in to the seashore, riding in on a small wave, and waddle up the
beach.

Indeed. As an Australian myself, I was always taught that platypuses live
in fresh water, not seawater, and are most usually found in mountain
streams and creeks in eastern Australia—nowhere near a seashore
environment.3

But when biologists heard of the seashore encounter with the Kangaroo Island
platypus, their comments indicated that the platypus is a species that scientists
still know little about.

‘When you think you know what they’re doing—they do something
different’, said one platypus expert, describing this latest observation
as ‘incredible’. Another expert who has successfully bred platypuses
in captivity for more than 10 years, Dr John Wamsley, was just as candid. ‘I’ve
never known of them going into the salty water’, he said. ‘Whether
they can survive in salt water or not, I haven’t got a clue.’1

‘When you think you know what they’re doing,
they do something different’—platypus expert, on hearing of platypuses
in the sea

Well, clearly platypuses can and do frequent seawater without any apparent
ill effects, for since this first witnessing of a platypus emerging from the
sea, Kangaroo Island tour guides have reported other sightings of platypuses
in saltwater rock pools in the area.

This discovery adds to the weight of evidence showing that many amphibians
and water-dwelling creatures (e.g. crocodiles, salmon, eels, starfish) can
tolerate large changes in salinity—thus helping to explain why both saltwater
and freshwater creatures (which were not on board the Ark) were able to survive
in the waters of the global Flood (Genesis
6–9).4

It is likely, though, that Noah took a pair of platypuses on board the Ark,
as, although they are known to be able to spend up to 10 hours in the water,5 much
of their time is spent on land. They dig their burrows on dry land, usually
taking care to dry themselves before entering, and they will not enter a burrow
if the entrance is below the waterline. Finding that platypuses can tolerate
saltwater gives us further insight into how they managed to spread out from
the Ark’s landing place in the mountains of Ararat—by swimming
and walking their way to Australia. In the light of this new report, it’s
possible that their migration route might have even included significant stretches
of ocean.6,7

This article originally appeared in Creation magazine in December 2003.
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So, for Christians, we need not be surprised on hearing of yet another amphibian
or aquatic animal, previously thought of as living exclusively either in fresh
or salty water, being discovered to tolerate both. But having been an atheist
once myself—a believer in evolution and completely ignorant of the Bible—I
can understand why many are surprised when findings like this are announced.
In fact, I remember in my younger days going on a holiday to Kangaroo Island,
and standing on the bank of an estuary just a few hundred metres from the sea,
looking out over the calm water and seeing something like a mole or a rat rise
to the surface momentarily a few metres away from me, before submerging again.
Puzzled and startled, I remember thinking, ‘What was that? Surely
not a water rat here in salt water—but what else could it be?’ It
never occurred to me at that time that I might have been looking at a
platypus … .8

So I can well understand the tour guide’s astonishment as he stood
on the beach with his group of tourists: ‘We didn’t take much notice
at first—it just looked like a bit of seaweed coming in on the wash’,
he said. ‘But as the water washed back, it kept on coming.’

References and notes

Littlely, B., The platypus with a taste for the sea, The
Advertiser, 19 July 2003, p. 11. Return to text.

Also, the platypus and spiny anteater are the only two
mammals that lay eggs. See Doolan, R., Mackay, J., Snelling, A.
and Hallby, A., The Platypus, Creation8(3):6–9,
1986. See also creation.com/platypus.
Return to text.

The platypus’s range extends from the Annan River
in northern Queensland through New South Wales to far-south Victoria and
the island state of Tasmania. They are only occasionally found on the South
Australian mainland—in the Riverland area of the Murray River. The
Kangaroo Island population is actually descended from animals introduced
from other states (Victoria and possibly Tasmania) since European settlement. Platypus
in Country Areas, rainforest-australia.com/platypus_in_country_areas.htm,
29 July 2003. Return to text.

Platypuses breathe air through their nostrils, and when
in water, come to the surface at least every 10 minutes. NSW National Parks & Wildlife
Service—Platypus, www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/npws.nsf/Content/The+platypus,
29 July 2003. Return to text.

A common belief is that the platypus evolved in Australia.
However, fossil platypus teeth have been found in South America, prompting
one leading Australian palaeontologist (and atheist), Dr Michael Archer,
to say, ‘This should shatter our warm conviction that the platypus
was uniquely Australian.’ The Weekend Australian, 23–24
January, 1993, p. 10. Return to text.

I have since seen platypuses many times in mountain streams
of Queensland and New South Wales, and when I read this recent news report
(ref. 1), I remembered that the form and swimming behaviour of the Kangaroo
Island ‘mole’-like creature I saw was consistent with that of
a platypus. Interestingly, in 1797, when early European settlers in the Sydney
area first encountered a platypus, they, too, described the animal as a ‘watermole’.
Ref. 2. Return to text.

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Readers’ comments

Elnes S.,South Africa, 12 September 2013

Slowly but surely God is revealing the answers to us, in His time which is always the right time. What an amazing God we serve!

David Cl.,United States, 12 September 2013

Having fished on the U.S. gulf coast for several years, I can say without a doubt that there are several different species of fish that can live in both salt and freshwater. I'm not just speaking of those species that live in the brackish bays or bayous either. I've seen freshwater Garfish leisurely swimming just off the beach before, several miles from the nearest body of freshwater.

Texas now has several rivers and inland reservoirs that boasts having very healthy stocks of Redfish. This is a species that can be routinely caught 20 -30 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico.